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I recently had a discussion with some of our partners around conformance profiles and templates. Collectively, we haven’t come across an industry-standard template. Some organizations build their own. Others decide to go without because templates can take time and effort to set up. We think a conformance profile should help you clearly and concisely communicate what your system expects in terms of data exchange. In healthcare, this isn’t a trivial task. Learn more about conformance profiles in healthcare, which we covered in a previous blog post.

We’re sharing our template for HL7 conformance profiles.

Here are Word and PDF versions of the HL7 interface conformance profile template that will come standard with Caristix Connect software (launching Fall 2010). Caristix Connect software is designed to automatically output a conformance profile based on this template.

Template Download

Template Instructions

First, download the template and save it to your computer. (You’ll need Microsoft Word 2007 or higher for the Word version.) To get you started, the template contains several examples of data elements to cover:

AL1 Patient Allergy segment, with segment attributes listed in a table. Below the table are comments on each field. Modify by adding segments as needed, along with your comments. Typically, comments document customer-specific information, customization notes, and potential deviations from the HL7 standard.

ST and XPN data types. Attributes and comments are listed. Change out and add more as needed.

User table for patient gender. Change out with the table data you’ll be using, and add other table types.

Note that the internal document links are not active in this sample template. When we launch Caristix Connect software, the links generated by the software will enable users to click to navigate sections.

Feedback

If you have any tweaks or suggestions for making this template better, please post a comment or drop me a line. And if you’re already using a template you like, we’d be interested in learning more in the comments.

Sharing

If you find the Caristix conformance profile template helpful, please share with your friends and colleagues. To make this easier, there’s a handy Share widget at the top of this post. Or just copy the link in your browser bar to send by email.